


Maternity.

by HeelToThroat



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Death, Depression, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide mention, Therapy, We Need to Talk About Kevin inspired, the Yagami's need a break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 04:37:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11456154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeelToThroat/pseuds/HeelToThroat
Summary: There were two paths of knowing Sachiko could choose.One – her son died a death as noble as his father’s. And had been flattened to the ground on a brave pursuit to uphold justice in this unfair world.Or two – the truth could bare its teeth and sink into her heart to suck out what life she had left.





	Maternity.

“Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away to regions of purity, and there grow young again.” ― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“…What’s this…?! The hostages are coming out!”

Sachiko’s head whipped up from her chopping board. The news had been buzzing in the background as she made dinner. She’d started watching the news habitually ever since meeting Soichiro, initially acting as a teller of Soichiro’s wellbeing, turning it off when the children came home from school. At her age, the stories of people turning this world into rot had been an exhausting cycle since she had been a girl. When Sachiko was young, she struggled against the constraints of the world formed by corruption and injustice. As a middle aged wife and Mother, Sachiko accepted that the world would take its natural course. While she would try herself to not become what she despised most in this world (those that made Soichiro’s job possible). Change, for the better, simply couldn’t be dictated.

That day, not that Sachiko had released at the time, marked the change for that mentality.

A social shift in what morality and justice entailed. Not only in Japan, but the world.

Some curses have the faces of an angel.

Sachiko gapped at the television screen. Particularly when she was younger, she had always been bound by the chains of apprehension. It had forced her to turn her head away from the news, not sure the constant bombardment of reality could keep her sane. Never before had she seen her hopes of virtue turning the tide come to fruition right before her. It was too good to be true. Relief and disbelief consumed the faces of the hostages that were currently flooding out on the screen.

The warning of danger stirred under her skin, but she would be lying if the buzzing report of the collapsed criminal hadn’t relieved her from a swallowing pressure.

\--

As she riddled through the scenes of her life, lying on her bed, eyes closed shut at two in the morning, she felt nothing but a viewer of life through the safety of her window. A participant and a contender she was not.

As she grew older, she realised normality wasn’t nearly as possible to define as she sought to build a mould to sit herself. Whatever it may in her small corner of reality she didn’t slot in so easily. It was easy to feel existential when people forgot you were even there. But even that was intentional.

As a girl she saw the cringe in their eyes, as she spoke a little too much. A little too freely. As she got older, her tongue became a little tighter. Her movements a little more crafted. Then, a lot more as she entered adulthood. She remembered being a little girl thinking of the future and can can can. She thought of now and can’t can’t can’t. And as she did the cringes became crinkles of a smile. Their smiles faded her and how less present did she feel.

She didn’t mind playing the role of house wife. To become a house wife following marriage was a normality, and Sachiko had watched the message be subliminally pushed upon for years. But she wanted her place, she wanted to slot neatly into society and contribute to something. She would be loyal to it, throw herself into it.

How pure Soichiro really was, Sachiko would think. Sachiko admired it. Loved it. A foolish giddiness brandished her at the thought of being chosen. She felt a level of catharsis as they declared their vows and distillation as their fates were tied by an invisible string, tugging each other along. Maybe there was some good in her, if something else so honourable and so worthy had weaved their fates and her life so closely together with his.

To Mother someone, however, was another matter.

In the final months of her first pregnancy, she dreamed of parasites invading her body. Shifting and morphing her outsides. People beaming at her and wishing her their congratulations as the parasite tore itself out of her stomach.

Sometimes she never even gave birth to it – instead, it resided inside her forever. Dictating and wearing her skin as its own, until herself had been pushed out.

\--

A smiling baby, huddled in her arms and drowned in surfaces as soft and fresh as his skin.

Squirming, squealing.

Sachiko took fascination in something so perpetually alive about her first born child, that so lacked in the adult company around her.

Blown curious eyes rolling around the room. And then landed on her. Something in her heart brimmed and flooded throughout her chest.

She was young, felt young, but she had never quite felt something as petulant and obstinate as the love she felt for this new bundle of conscious flesh. She held him firmly, gently and rocked him slightly as tears began to trickle from his glazed eyes.

The vulnerability she could see in those desolate orbs made her want to destroy anything and everything that could possibly harm him into dust. It was something so gluttonous and selfish eating away at her sensibility. She was defiling everything she possibly knew about living sensibly for such a small creature.

\--

The moist, twisted grass sunk underneath Sachiko’s feet as she pushed Sayu forward.

Her hands gripping the handles of Sayu’s wheel chair firmly. She didn’t want to jolt her daughter (but she does want to, she wants to shake Sayu out of this stupor. She needed the spirited away version of what she knew to return and fill the phantom that was left behind) and walked with thin steadiness in such conditions.

The trees and grass in their surroundings were a safety blanket from the cold concrete of Tokyo. The unfamiliarity of it did half the work of putting the safety on in her mind.

Sayu. Her daughter was all she had left.

Though even then, she didn’t really have Sayu. A piece of her shattered heart crumbling away. It was part relief in having someone to throw herself into caring for and part need to see her daughter again. It was a warm day. The false calm after a storm, and Sachiko was passing through with an alarming amount of rage. How can the world keep glowing, when the lights have gone out behind her eyes?

And above all - what could she have done differently? It was the racing, impossible question. She was a masochist. She wanted punishment, so she asked the question again and again.

If she could creep back into the past, she knew she would in a heart beat.

Her thoughts licked, whispered and haunted her skin into goose bumps and cold sweat. They sang of failure.

\--

Light tugged Sachiko’s hand, his other little finger pointing at something in the distance in awe. His eyes large thirsty throats, his hands grabbing onto the unknown. She lost count of how many questions he had asked her that day.

Sachiko grinned, running her fingers affectionately through his hair.

 _My clever boy_.

\--

Wiping her a hands through the kitchen towel, Sachiko peered at the time. He should be back any second now. As soon as she walked into the hallway the front door clicked.

She smiled widely as Light walked through the door.

“I’m home” He announced, leaning down to take of his shoes. His blank expression didn’t change as he poked his head up, catching his mothers eye and making an ‘ _ah_ ’ sound as if he had only remembered something. Reaching into his bag he handed Sachiko some paper.

Carefully, Sachiko unfolded the sheet – the content was beyond impressive. Light had ranked the highest in the test scores nationally. Her eyes bulged, more for show then genuine surprise. She cared about grades, she cared about her children _trying_.

As she voiced her pleasure Light was already walking up the stairs announcing he will be studying. A strange anxiety stirred in her, feeling the peculiar need to stall the journey.

“Oh, if there’s anything you need just tell me”, she called after him.

“No, mum.”

Her heart pounded in time to his feet creaking the floor boards and the slam of his bedroom door. Still, watching him climb up had her heart banging against her rib cage. It was a sensation of anxiety she couldn’t place; its relevance was non-existent as far as her knowledge went. Between her husband with respectable job and her achieving children, she really could find very little to complain about.

At this point in her life, Sachiko realised she had two proficient talents. One - a knack for observance and therefore a continuous expectation for the worst. Once she had stayed up until five in the morning out of fear she had left the stove on and the flames would consume her children and the life she so carefully guarded. She laid awake in her bed next to a sleeping Soichiro staring at the ceiling, getting up and walking downstairs to check the stove. Looking hard to make sure her mind wasn’t playing tricks and the rug would be pulled from under her feet, to learn she had made a fatal mistake. Her torture coming to an end with sleep stealing her away when she felt the mattress lift as her husband left the bed. It was naivety and ignorance that she feared she continually had. That there was something horrendous on the horizon and some higher, silent being was chortling along to the dramatic irony.

The second talent was smothering what she knew until its ashes were taken by the wind.

\--

Seven years old. He was nodding away politely to something Soichiro’s colleague was telling him.

 _Light prefers the presence of adults_ Sachiko sussed out. He made a pointed effort at standing in the kitchen achieving conversations, away from where all the children were left to play amongst each other. She had read somewhere that naturally high achieving children were likely to be drawn to talking to adults more so then kids their own age. And with this small get together for Soichiro and his colleagues, it was the perfect opportunity for that.

Feigning interest, with a small, engaged smiling pulling at his lips. His hands tucked neatly out of sight behind his back. His boredom and disinterest tucked away with them.

His conversers were charmed and struck by the fluency of adult phatic talk he was inanely able to exude.

Light – seven years old - was tugging and tucking their body to suit the person’s interests. Her seven-year-old was lying and she knew he was because she was orchestrating herself the exact same way. The tugging and pulling of her strings.

Sachiko’s mind span. Light was with her almost every hour of the waking day - with the exception of school. The spark of curiosity and brilliance she was so used to seeing, gradually a lid was being placed over. It was like watching a fire slowly die, and to poke and prod at the low waning embers.

And it was clear, that what ever he had been looking for when he abandoned those children and planted himself into this paltry pocket of the adult world, could not be found here either.

She pursed her lips slightly and turned away.

\--

It wasn’t long after, that these glazed, crafted looks would be directed towards her.

\--

_Yagami Light, you think I don’t know you at all._

Light valued his privacy, that much was obvious. Sachiko was familiar with how Light would often leave a slip of paper through the crack of his door that would fall every time it was opened. Sometimes she didn’t bother picking it up and putting it back as a way to inform Light she had been in his room.

On a certain day, Sachiko went to inspect Light’s room, as she had Sayu’s, for miscellaneous trash or tidying. As the door clicked open the piece of paper fluttered down by her feet as expected. On contrary to the usual routine of it however, there was a snap by her ear, so quiet she wasn’t sure she heard it, as she closed the door behind her.

Sachiko looked down. By her feet was a crumbled piece of lead, evoking her brow to wrinkle together in confusion. Pulling her head back up again, she inspected the rest of the room.

More or less, it was the epitome of what a straight A student’s room would look like. Books stacked neatly on the shelves, desk neat, bed made. With evidence to show its occupant was still a teenager. Mostly from the occupants of the bin – empty crisp bags, wrappers and so on. The lead by her feet stood out like a sore thumb, making Sachiko realise how intentional the rest of the room appeared.

_What makes this so strange?_

Occasionally, Sachiko felt first, then understood later. First came instinct and then logic. Unfortunately, this was one of these occasions.

She stepped away carefully. Inspecting the lead and its position by the doorway.

 _Did the door snap it?_ she wondered inspecting the door. Picking up a more put together piece of the lead.

Assuming it was intentional, it would need to sit somewhere where it can be concealed. Evaluating the door once more, she zoned in on the hinges.

_Mine and Soichiro’s door does the same… so the upper hinge would be left open perhaps?_

Placing the lead on the hinge, she stood outside the room and repeated the action of closing and opening the door.

Looking down, Sachiko swallowed back a gasp that attempted to escape her throat.

The broken piece of lead was on the floor, so barely noticeable it made her appreciate how she herself had been able to.

 _He put that there on purpose,_ she assumed, _but to go to such lengths… why is it so in your best interest to know if someone has occupied your room Light?_

Standing peevish and vaguely unsure, Sachiko stared down the offending item before deciding to pick up the broken pieces and dispose of them.

She looked across his table tops in search for spare pieces of lead. Slightly uncertain, she tried pulling open the draws. And found nothing.

Eventually, she managed to remove one from a mechanical pencil found in one of the kitchen draws.

\--

On occasion, Light was always ready to help Soichiro with cases when he had come home from work. Pieces of the puzzle they couldn’t figure out.

One thing that had initially drawn Sachiko to her husband was his unwavering moral compass and enduring sense to do what is right. She had admired it, but right now, she wondered who twisted fate to turn something so pure into a thing of destruction.

Soichiro was speaking of the case he and his team were working on at the table. Light was concentrating on his food and quietly looking down as Soichiro spoke briefly about work. Sachiko glanced at him sparingly.

“I don’t think we should be speaking about this at the table” She interrupted abruptly.

\--

Soichiro and Light had been gone weeks and Sachiko’s entire body ached with worry.

Her discomposure for Soichiro was slightly duller, as it was a dread that had been aged and matured over the years to simmer under her mind that occasionally raised to the surface, and was another feeling entirely. An incomparable fear and anxiety for Light was different.

Simultaneously to the pointed absence of Light, there had been an abrupt halt in the Kira killings. Soichiro never openly spoke on the Kira case in any kind of great detail, but it was sorely obvious to her that he had been working on it as the Chief of the NPA. He had given her some explanation for Light’s absence, to which Sachiko could only dismiss for how loaded it was.

This had more or less settled her final suspicions. Her heart plummeted.

_What have you gotten yourself into Light?_

There was so much. Just so much that had been playing her nerves. And none of it she could blame on Light facing the plunge between adulthood and adolescence. Because Light just wasn’t an ordinary teenager. And the more Light dismissed his behaviour being a result of his young adulthood the more it was confirmed.

It was appearance of Misa Amane, and how perfectly she tied in with the second Kira (and she seriously doubted the risk Light would take by putting in the effort to only be with someone so avant-garde). How convenient it would be for Kira to have connections to the police force. She had been watching the case too religiously to be casted as a fool. She consumed the news more than she ever had before. Her entire life became Kira, Kira, _Kira._ There was some of it that she couldn’t explain which somewhat provided her comfort. For example, she could hardly explain _how_ Kira had been killing. But equally, there were things she could explain too easily.

The very word Kira, made her nose turn up, sickening her as more people around her shifted into Kira’s favour. The weight of the burden sat heavy on her shoulders. Curled her shoulders inwards and left her sleeping late into the day.

The burden especially of the idea that she is betraying Soichiro.

Disturbing their vows, washing away what ever cleanse and betterment she felt when she was with Soichiro.

The predictable voice of her kind, moral husband swam in her mind – _It’s the right thing to do, Sachiko._

Beyond that, she couldn’t deny the satisfaction she felt when karma befell on those wrong doers of the world. When sexual assaulters had unpremeditated heart attacks or easily let off rapists would be hit and killed by a car. How it felt when justice finally, _finally_ prevailed.

_Would I be doing a disservice to the world, assuming I have the power to stop it?_

Sachiko conclusively knew that wasn’t entirely true. Not with the manner the Kira Killings have spiralled into. Not when people hadn’t fundamentally begun to change or people were only dictated by fear and the prospect of power.

No, she couldn’t sacrifice her son, but the definition of that had become blurred. On one hand, he was already on the path of self destruction – the idea of Kira becoming a true God just wasn’t realistic one. He may succeed, it was possible with the kind of commitment that had been drilled into him. And the world would fall into darkness that she could not even begin to imagine. On the other, if he were stopped and handed in with shackles attached to his wrists… well she wasn’t entirely sure. It sounded like a public execution, though she were sure they would keep the identity of Kira a secret and let the the subculture of Kira whittle away into history books. A bullet would be planted inside him like a developing foetus and birth a returning chaos to society.

The idea as well that she on her own should shoulder this burden and tell no one infested in her mind. She thought about the truth pouring through the cracks of Sayu and Soichiro’s normality. Of passing the burden, like a common cold, onto Soichiro to weigh him down. He held strong emotional intelligence – meaning he was weak by the plague of personal responsibility. Soichiro felt he owed the world something and he paid back by his dedication through his role in the NPA. In a way that made her and him similar, even when (she thought) they were so different – Sachiko felt like she owed Soichiro something tremendous.

Without a doubt, if Soichiro were to ever find out, he would end his life. By doing this ( _playing naïve_ ), she was well and truly playing the role that society had thrust upon her, and so many other women. She remembered studying Classics in school, a repetitive pattern in many civilisations was of a women’s position and sole purpose were being the core and the foundation of the family. And without this foundation even societies would fall apart. It was archaic, but nevertheless it had been churned into minds of women like a feeding tube, the vitality of a women’s need to become a mother. Teachers looked at her class as if to say _take note_. By becoming in a sense a martyr, and keeping the terrible truths fallen behind sofa’s and swept under carpets, she was preserving her family, and their vision of normality they created.

Did this mean she resented her son? Sachiko wondered. Maybe. For being an outlier, for disrupting her operations and for breaking the rules. Her role. It made her analyse her every action when raising Light. There were values she laid down, to both her children – resilience and comittment being two.

However, this seemed vexing, as the culmination was beyond anything she could control. She could nurture, but she could not control nature. Light had a deep, buried unease and dissatisfaction she had seen grow over the years. It wasn’t apathy exactly, only more a passion that was biding, waiting to emerge.

She could understand Light to an extent; which unfortunately equated that she understood Kira. Were those two things one and the same? Which was more real?

Sachiko could think of this forever, but it can always come swinging back to the same conclusion.

_I could never regret Light. Not ever._

This kind of love was something she could neither fake or force, wasn’t logical or rational. It just was.

And above all, what she wanted was likely the most impossible at this stage – for Light to be happy.

\--

They were standing on an execution platform, like some scene from an Edo-period drama Sachiko watched with Sayu.

A clamorous crowd surrounded the platform, and were blatantly split into two. One half were shouting obscenities against Kira and Kira’s evil. The other screamed injustice and corruption of the Police for taking Kira’s will away from the world.

To her left knelt ( _Kira_ ) Light, his head limped forward so she couldn’t see his face. Sachiko’s blood turned cold as her eyes wandered on. Soichiro was standing, looking down in his NPA uniform clasping an axe with both hands. Her breath quickened when she realised his expression too was shadowed and she couldn’t make it out.

The crowd’s cheers and cries grew deafeningly as Soichiro raised his axe up to the sky. And as it came plummeting down towards his son’s neck, Soichiro disappeared. In his place, a black, smiling Shinigami, that stood like a dancing skeleton decorated in the ebony feathers of a crow appeared, spreading its long bat wings. It wasn’t holding an axe, but a scythe. The Shinigami laughed hysterically, its glazed red eyes bulging, and its scythe cutting through the air. As easily as slicing through a sheet of paper, it plunged through Lights clean neck.

By her feet, rolling like a red, Autumn apple, was her sons decapitated head.

Sachiko looked down, and started screaming. No sound came out of her throat.

\--

Sachiko greeted Soichiro at the door before going back to check on dinner.

From behind he kissed her lightly on the cheek. She smiled.

“There you are Light” Sachiko heard Soichiro say.

She turned around. Light was standing in the door frame out of his elementary school uniform and in his pyjamas. You might say he looked shy, with his hands tucked behind his back and strands of hair dusting over his eyes as he looked up at his father.

Soichiro slid out a kitchen chair from under the table. He sat and pulled Light onto his lap.

“Tell me about your day Light” Soichiro said, smiling at him gently.

Light smiled before he begun.

\--

Sachiko wanted to scream. She wanted throw something. She wanted to scratch her face and pull out her hair.

All at once anger, regret and misery bombarded her.The news buckled her knees and she was slammed with the percussions.

When she heard the news over the phone, she allowed her swollen voice to spill over.

Calmly, she had put down the phone, went to their bedroom and closed the door.

Then she screamed, higher and higher. Louder and louder. Her throat burned. She could feel wet trails down her face and tears soaking around her eyes.

She picked up her jewellery box and launched it across the room. The box exploded with pieces of metal flying in fire works at all directions.

Her knees failing her, she fell to the floor. She curled into herself. She grabbed locks of her black hair and tugged as hard as she could. She dug her manicured nails into her cheek. The skin broke and a warmer, thicker path bled down her face.

_Light was with Soichiro when he died._

She could feel bile building and verging on pouring out.

Her mind was swarming black lotus eating away at her mind in chaos.

But it always came back to one word.

_Murder._

Silence. Suddenly, the chaos came to a stand still. And Sachiko was trapped. Trapped on death and not on dead. How desperate she felt, how much anguish there was screaming at her to turn back the clock. How could there be so much difference of the few seconds between life and death?

Finally, and abruptly, she commanded herself to halt. The brick wall isn’t going to budge. He was and now he wasn’t.

She took a deep breath. Stood. Slapped her cheek hard once.

She went to the bathroom and fixed her face and then her hair. She threw the chunks of hair down the toilet and flushed. She picked up the jewellery box. It was dented. She threw it in the bin. She picked up the jewellery from the floor one by one and put them in a spare draw string bag.

Then, she went out into the landing and into Sayu’s room.

\--

What was worse, losing one of her children or losing them both? Perhaps the answer is obvious.

There was a certain warmth in Sayu’s presence that reminded Sachiko of Sayu’s father. An air of wisdom and maturity, and a generally similar way of thinking. Sayu occupied the house the way Soichiro’s clothes still hung in the wardrobe. His ties still laying in place, like fallen soldiers laying in their burial. The bristles of his tooth brush still damp. His comb had stray hair floating between its teeth. Traces and clues that Soichiro had a functioning heart once. And Sayu was a gift left behind, Sachiko thought, a piece of himself to stop her from forgetting. She clung to Sayu, like a survivor of an apocalypse would cling to another living being.

And she was too young, to hold such emptiness in her eyes. Too young to see what she had seen. And Sachiko knew that Sayu blamed herself. Whilst Soichiro had been a good man, he had moments where he could be asininely thoughtless.

 _He’d say something like – I am a bad Police Officer; I chose my daughter over the case – and now Sayu feels like a burden._ That maybe an oversimplification, Sachiko considered, but she knew Soichiro too well.

Fondly, she remembers the lengthy discussions with her daughter about her how the latest drama they’d been watching together would turn out. Initially, Sachiko hadn’t been an avid TV show viewer until it became ritual to do so with her daughter. She mourned the fact that when Sayu does come back to her, it wouldn’t be that girl who squealed over actors and gave away cheeky grins easily. Now – in the presence of a shell shocked daughter - she wishes she had told Sayu to be as loud as she needed, to say anything she ever wanted to say. To interrupt, to talk over people, to spill over with her passion and excitement.

The silence that was louder than anything Sayu could ever say.

\--

 _What could I have done differently_.

On January 28th 2010 Yagami Light died.

There were two paths of knowing Sachiko could choose.

One – her son died a death as noble as his father’s. And had been flattened to the ground on a brave pursuit to uphold justice in this unfair world.

Or two – the truth could bare its teeth and sink into her heart to suck out what life she had left.

The very same day an abrupt halt in the Kira Killings had taken place – never to be seen again in its former glory or authenticity.

Both paths likely held a degree of truth to them.

Light had always had this silence about him though he was never quiet. Always the one to carry a conversation – though not often the one who would initiate. He would smile, appear engaged, but it was always with some emptiness that the silent abyss offered. In the end, with all the fillers we spring to and forth each other over and over – nothing is really being said.

 _Maybe there is indeed value in the mindless natter_ , Sachiko mused.

Sachiko stood in the mortuary room. In front of her a table stood with a blue blanket thrown over a body in front of rows of capsules where abandoned bodies eternally slumbered.

She didn’t need to identify him, she just wanted to see him for the last time.

The mortician lifted the sheet to reveal his face.

Once again, her son was eerily quiet however now she howled, the bleak melody not quite meeting her through her anguish. Before she could comprehend what she was doing, she was holding him. Rocked him back and forth. As if the lightless and distressingly unhappy expression could be cooed away.

She ran her fingers through his hair, cupped his face running a finger across his cheek, her sobbing face pressed desperately into his hair. The pain rushing through her body when she stole a look at his face had paralysed her in this drawn out period of agony.

She had a peculiar moment were a seed of the past lodged into her mind. She was in her Mother’s house and came across her Mother in the lounges armchair. Her face like a wrinkled peach, stared emptily into the wallpaper. Sachiko new instantly that she was dead, but her first profound thought was what expression she was wearing the moment she died and how much that reflected the life she had lived.

Light Yagami’s death had coincided with the abrupt cease of Kira victims. They had told Sachiko that Light had been one of the many casualties created by Kira.

 _That’s certainly not wrong_ , she brooded.

For the last time, she looked down at her son’s desolated face, entirely abandoned by God.

 _You did this didn’t you? My stupid, clever boy…_.

 _And yet._ The unconditional, perpetual flooding feeling was still there, even now.

 _I could have saved him_ , she thought for the millionth time.

\--

“Why are you still here?” She bit, her voice clipped.

A shadow of dark wings and a grossly unhuman figure stretched from her feet against the hospitals path. She sat on bench. Staring emptily against the horizon. Sachiko sneered, refusing to look up at the leech against her side.

She didn’t need to see him, this plague that latched to her like a curse, that fed from her fear and insensibility. A callous reminder. She strained her eyes into the distance, not allowing a twitch of her view to bring the black of the path into her vision. Her teeth sank into the flesh of her cheek, her fingers began shaking as they clutched her handbag. She commanded her body to be still, to numb itself into stone.

“How do I go back. How do I forget?” There was quiet for several beats. “ _Tell me_ ”

Then, the sudden sound of people coming down the path from the hospital made her purse her lips tightly. It occurred to her how she must look muttering to herself. She looked down at her fingers, the tips shook as she stretched out her fingers and brought them back together into a fist.

How do you describe the cocktail of emotions that was grief? Perhaps for her, grief came with wings.

That came into their lives and replaced the people she loved.

Maybe grief was a God of Death who would never leave her side.

\--

She had contemplated suicide. She felt resolute enough to admit this, even if it were only to herself.

She could feel herself running through the same mental obstacle course. She became a being of the night that was granted no sleep as guilt plagued her thoughts. She wanted to fall to her knees in front of the God of Death and beg for their forgiveness.

Inside her she had known what was happening and she chose to keep silent. A sin was committed of such magnitude; she couldn’t even pretend she was a good person like she once could.

_Soichiro and Light are dead because of me._

Even more so was she haunted by the thought of deepening the cut on her reputation. Performing further hurt and leaving her daughter alone in the world.

She wasn’t the Mother of a murderer who gallivanted their crimes like a Columbine school shooter. She didn’t stand on the platform of public shaming, where reporters and TV presenters asked where did the mother go wrong? No, she could languish to herself only the grief and guilt.

So, she was pulled. Like two gravitational pulls to the black hole of oblivion, or to this life that too seemed like the void.

\--

“Mum?”

Sachiko’s hands immediately stilled.

It was too cold to go outside that day and take Sayu on her daily outing. Outside, there was plenty of opportunity for distraction and discussion, Sachiko could take the one-sided nature of it. She had to settle with entertaining inside today. Facing the painful silence, Sachiko took to talking about the most dismal of subjects. Listing out her entire grocery receipts, what books she had seen through the store window, what she had seen other people wearing on the streets. She was used to throwing herself into menial tasks – tidying, cooking. Today no different, she went through Sayu’s laundry as her words did nothing but fill the void.

And then – for the first time in a long time – her daughters sweet, beautiful voice, engulfed the room. Now she was the silent one, Sachiko mused. She turned slowly. She was reminded of when she was a girl, and had first watched the western film Wizard of Oz, her enchantment when she watched the screen bleed from black and white into technicolour.

Sayu was leaning forward, her black hair partially covering her face. Her eyebrows were pinched together, her features drawn by confusion and concentration. And then, in one magical moment, Sayu’s eyes lifted to her mothers in a conscious gaze.

Sachiko never thought anyone would call her that again.

“Mum?” Sayu said again through her groggy throat, tears flooding around her eyes.

Sachiko embraced her, stroked her hair, cupped her face. Strands of her hair sticking to her face as she wept.

“I’m here Sayu”

\--

“Do you blame yourself for your daughter’s condition, Yagami-san?”

Sachiko looked down at the hand on her lap twisting the ring Soichiro had proposed with on her finger.

“Yes, I suppose I do feel slightly responsible,” She offered lightly, looking up and not avoiding her gaze.

This certainly hadn’t been her idea. The suggestion had initially been brought up when their new local Doctor had assigned Sayu with a therapist. Explaining that it would be incredibly valuable with her current PTSD and depression, something that was still a frivolous and elusive idea in Japan.

“And for you too Yagami-san,” the Doctor had pressed, “I can’t imagine the trauma you’ve had to go through with your daughter. For some, having someone to listen can be comforting, I recommend you try it.”

She felt it to be too hypocritical of her to decline the offer when she had been encouraging the idea for Sayu only moments earlier. Sachiko could admit the prospect of making herself ready for someone to pick her apart behind their eyes made her skin crawl.

Sachiko guessed that Yamamoto Riku was around her own age. Her hair was always tied back out of her face that would sit very still and controlled whenever Sachiko spoke. The brown of her hair mixed with grey strands suggested she regularly dyed it. When she did speak, the tension in her features melted away into a softer expression. Her hand sat over the other on her crossed over knee, occasionally moving to tuck a strand of hair away behind her ear. Sachiko never saw a ring on any of her fingers. Her office didn’t hold anything that left Easter eggs of Yamamoto’s life outside the room. No framed pictures or mascots attached to her chain of keys.

There was partial comfort to this, Sachiko could delude herself that she spoke to the void that would sometimes speak back.

It wasn’t that Sachiko thought she couldn’t trust her; she just didn’t want to. There was only so much she could reveal, besides, she was doing this for Sayu. Several sessions in and the consistent need to conjure up laconic answers was beginning to get tiresome. Yamamoto asked about much – Sachiko’s childhood, her relationship with her ( _dead_ ) husband, her children. _Kira_.

_I imagine Kira is a topic with many of her patients now._

“You know,” Yamamoto input after a stretch of silence, “I experience many women that enter this room, who are self deprecate for the actions of others. Especially mothers when its about their children.”

Sachiko held her stare.

“And I expect, as a house wife, your family was your life wasn’t it?”

Her eyes shifted to the window.

“Yagami-san” Yamamoto pressed, garnering her attention. Hesitantly, Sachiko looked back at her. “Yagami-san, you can give your children your love, your time, your attention,” Yamamoto leaned forward and looked her in the eye, said firmly yet gently, “but you can never give them yourself. Or you shouldn’t”

Sachiko felt stunted.

“What do you…” She started.

“Not entirely. Sachiko, you carried your children in your body for a time, tied their shoe laces, taught them who they should be. I’m sure you felt you knew them more than they knew themselves,” Yamamoto leaned back straight. “But please don’t make the mistake in thinking that they are extensions of you. They are their own people who made their own decisions, that had events happen to them out of your control.”

Sachiko’s teeth sunk into her lip.

“I’m not… but then what about when I did raise them? What if I taught them all the wrong things? I wonder.”

Sachiko halted, a new wave of revelations washing through her.

“I… I should have spent more time making sure they were kind and good hearted people, or at the least tried to be, more then putting my energy into making sure they valued success enough. Perhaps because of my husband, I expected it to come naturally to them.”

“Is this only about Sayu-san?” Yamamoto inquired, the gleam of curiosity in her eyes betraying her.

“…No”, Sachiko muttered.

Yamamoto didn’t press further.

“Fundamentally, we like to place blame on others for our own actions, especially if we’ve been hurt by those people. We have to learn for ourselves, we have to have our own thoughts. Remember Sachiko-san, you cannot control everything.”

Sachiko didn’t respond. Her fingers lifted to twist the ring, her eyes falling to her lap.

“Looks like our times up”, Yamamoto noticed, her eyes moved to the wall clock.

Sachiko stood, bowing in thanks to the therapist.

“I’ll see you same time in two weeks, Yamagi-san,” Yamamoto bowing to her in return. Looking her in the eye for the last time that day. “And please think about what I’ve said.”

\--

Sachiko looked over to the four NPA members dressed in black, all pretending they were mourning her son. Or, they were mourning the Light they thought they knew.

As the casket sank into the ground, next to a gravestone engraved “Soichiro Yagami”, a tear dribbled down Sachiko’s cheek. Next to her Sayu blubbered the wet tears soaking her face. When Sachiko told Sayu, she stiffened (“ _Oh_ ”) moments later she broke down curling into herself ( _“not again, not again”_ ). She was cold and her reactions came in harsh, energy draining spurts. It wasn’t till the day of his funeral, when she saw the casket, did she break down again. Looking back at her husband and son’s former co-workers, she noticed Matsuda had turned to watch them. Always one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, he looked at them with tremendous amount of pity and sadness. Maybe even guilt. Irritated, Sachiko looked away.

The ceremony ended. Sachiko and Sayu stood, as the last Yagami’s standing, at the doorway to thank the guests for coming. Sachiko stood her ground firm.

Aizawa, the last to leave, gave Sachiko an awkward one armed hug.

“Light was an amazing man; he had so much dedication to his work…” He looked to his feet for a moment hiding his uncertain expression and the furrow in his brows before lifting his head back up hesitantly “…I’m sure Soichiro would have been proud.”

The gaze Sachiko returned to him was stiffer.

“I think his dedication was wrongly directed by his pride… and… I hope you all understand that Light always thought he was doing the right thing.”

Silently, they shared a brief look akin to mutual understanding, and Aizawa’s face grew perplexed the longer it went.

A little dazed, Aizawa broke away from the moment.

“Take care of yourself Yagami-san,” Aizawa said, bowing to her slightly.

Sachiko nodded, forcing her lips to curve into a small smile for him. “You as well Aizawa-san”.

Sachiko wrapped an arm around Sayu’s shoulder as the two watched the NPA members leave. A murder of crows squawking and hopping around the parking lot as they did. Aizawa turned back one last time, his expression nonplus and sombre.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to clarify I don't think there's a problem with women choosing to be wives and mothers. I completely respect anyone who does that, I hope the fic didn't imply differently. But I do think the idea is very socially normalised, and there's a lot of criticism and disrespect towards women who choose to not go down that road. Particularly I found when women choose not to have children.  
> I was rereading the series and thinking about how Sachiko and Sayu are consistently looked over. It came across a lot of characters (read Light) left themselves open because of how pushed back they both were. I think Sachiko would play this to her advantage, she is so noticeable in the back ground of Light's initial antics from a readers pov it made me wonder if she noticed. Also, I head canon hard that Light gets a lot of attributes from Sachiko. My favourite characters are the type torn between two moral paths. It pains me the think of the internal dilemma Sachiko would have gone through if she had known Light was Kira.  
> Something I often hear from older women is that once they hit a certain age (ie. when they're not young or able to have children) they become invisible. Personally I've been reconstructing ideas about motherhood and marriage - as something that's taught what I want verses what I actually want. And that's really what made this fic.  
> (Also spot the Hughes, Plath, Soseki and Chopin references lol) 
> 
> If you read till the end thank you so much, any comments and kudos are really appreciated :)


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